From that time the little Elsie drooped and pined, growing paler and thinner day by day—her step more languid, and her eye more dim—till no one could have recognized in her the bright, rosy, joyous child, full of health and happiness, that she had been six months before. She went about the house like a shadow, scarcely ever speaking or being spoken to. She made no complaint, and seldom shed tears now; but seemed to have lost her interest in everything and to be sinking into a kind of apathy.
"I wish," said Mrs. Dinsmore one day, as Elsie passed out into the garden, "that Horace had sent that child to boarding-school, and stayed at home himself. Your father says he needs him, and as to her—she has grown so melancholy of late, it is enough to give one the vapors just to look at her."
"I am beginning to feel troubled about her," replied Adelaide, to whom the remark had been addressed; "she seems to be losing flesh, and strength, too, so fast. The other day I went into her room, and found Fanny crying heartily over a dress of Elsie's which she was altering. 'Oh! Miss Adelaide,' she sobbed, 'the chile gwine die for sartain!' 'Why no, Fanny,' I said, 'what makes you think so? she is not sick.' But she shook her head, saying, 'Just look a here, Miss Adelaide,' showing me how much she was obliged to take the dress in to make it fit, and then she told me Elsie had grown so weak that the least exertion overcame her. I think I must write to Horace."
"Oh, nonsense, Adelaide!" said her mother, "I wouldn't trouble him about it. Children are very apt to grow thin and languid during the hot weather, and I suppose fretting after him makes it affect her rather more than usual; and just now in the holidays she has nothing else to occupy her thoughts. She will do well enough."
So Adelaide's fears were relieved, and she delayed writing, thinking that her mother surely knew best.
Mrs. Travilla sat in her cool, shady parlor, quietly knitting. She was alone, but the glance she occasionally sent from the window seemed to say that she was expecting some one.
"Edward is unusually late to-day," she murmured half aloud. "But there he is at last," she added, as her son appeared, riding slowly up the avenue. He dismounted and entered the house, and in another moment had thrown himself down upon the sofa, by her side. She looked at him uneasily; for with the quick ear of affection she had noticed that his step lacked its accustomed elasticity, and his voice its cheerful, hearty tones. His orders to the servant who came to take his horse had been given in a lower and more subdued key than usual, and his greeting to herself, though perfectly kind and respectful, was grave and absent in manner; and now his thoughts seemed far away, and the expression of his countenance was sad and troubled.
"What ails you, Edward—is anything wrong, my son?" she asked, laying her hand on his shoulder, and looking into his face with her loving, motherly eyes.
"Nothing with me mother," he answered affectionately; "but," he added, with a deep-drawn sigh, "I am sorely troubled about my little friend. I called at Roselands this afternoon, and learned that Horace Dinsmore has gone North—to be absent nobody knows how long—leaving her at home. He has been gone nearly a week, and the child is—heart-broken."
"Poor darling! is she really so much distressed about it, Edward?" his mother asked, taking off her spectacles to wipe them, for they had suddenly grown dim. "You saw her, I suppose?"